Page 48 of Kiwi Gold
He said, “Want to know what I’m thinking?”
“Well,yeh.”I tried to scowl, but instead, I was still smiling. “That’s thepoint.”
“Right,” he said. “Here I go, then. I’m thinking that everything I’ve heard about the bloke makes me think he was more of a dickhead. I’m wondering how much you loved him, and I’m trying to decide whether I care too much about that or don’t care a bit. Wait, though. Waiter’s coming back.”
* * *
Lachlan
Yeh, probably not my best move. Her eyes got wide, her body got still, and she got silent, but when the waiter had left and we were eating firm-fleshed kingfish with asparagus and lemon, the flavors rich and sweet and clean as the dune grass blowing on the wind and the sea foaming onto the shore, her shoulders began to relax a bit.
I said, “Maybe I’m the one who needs dating lessons. Not sure that was the wisest next move just then, either, slagging off the dead husband. Normally, I do better.”
She said, “No, I’m the one who brought it up. And whatever I needed to work out, I’ve worked it out. I’ve been through all the trauma and drama, and I have a wonderful life now. A job I love. Kids who challenge me to be better every day. I live in achurch.I wasn’t baring my soul to you, honestly. The oysters reminded me, that’s all. Of how much I missed Dunedin, and how much I wanted to be back here. How much friendlier it feels.”
I didn’t think that was all, but you didn’t rush a bird just when it was settling down at the edge of the feeder. You sat still instead so as not to startle it, so I said, “I’m accepting that as read, then. Want a bit of this wine? Good with kingfish, eh. Save your wine for the beef. It’ll go well with that.”
“Men don’t like to share,” she said, but she was eyeing the glass in my hand all the same. It was a Decibel Wines chardonnay, rich, oaky, and even a little smoky, its flavor marrying with the succulent kingfish and the green-grass springtime freshness of the asparagus and creating something pretty bloody orgasmic.
“Who told you that?” I asked. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, and I said, “Yeh. Thought so. He was wrong about that, too. Or maybe it depends who you’re sharing with.” And handed her the glass.
She took a sip and sighed. “Oh, I like that.”
“Have a bite of fish and asparagus,” I said. “Then try it again.”
She did, and I watched. The glass was oversized, the way restaurants always do. Over the top. She had to tip her head a good way back, and the way her golden eyes closed at the touch of the wine on her tongue …
I’d already watched her swallow salty-sweet oysters tonight, greedy and laughing with pleasure. Now, I was having serious difficulties.
She gave me a slow, secret smile and handed the glass back. “I’m going to have to be careful,” she said. “We’re only on the second course. Could tell you even more of my secrets. Could fall off my shoes again.”
“No,” I said. “That’s not happening. I’m going for the car for you, no worries. And as for the secrets? I’m good with the secrets.”
“That’s good,” she said, “as we seem to be sharing a fairly large secret right now.”
I wondered, for a wild moment, whether I’d said something I’d oughtn’t. But no. She meant our parents. “That’s not our secret,” I said. “It’s theirs, and it’s out. Not a secret at all anymore, once the girls start telling their friends. We’re helping with the fallout, that’s all. I’m expecting fallout.”
“And deciding how far you’ll go to help,” she said. “Which I’m guessing is pretty far, but when you have four younger sisters, you probably learn about boundaries, too.”
“You may.” I didn’t want to talk about this, but she probably did. “Are you surprised, about your dad?”
She handed me back my glass, and then she laughed. A hand at the side of her head, her elbow on the table, a helpless look about her. “Surprised? I’msomuch more than surprised. It’s forbidden, sperm donation in Islam. Absolutelyharam. Any sort of reproductive assistance, actually, unless the egg and sperm come from the married couple. It’s adultery. You can say, ‘Who really cares?’ And, ‘In this day and age?’ But my mum was devout, and my dad loved my mum more than life. They risked everything to be together, and then he risked her finding out about this? About his otherchildren?He did it to support us, he said, and I accept that, but … I’d like to have been a fly on the wall. Or, rather, I wouldn’t, because there would’ve been storms. She’d haveraged.People think Muslim women are subservient. They are, and they aren’t, or maybe I should just say that my mum was and she wasn’t, because I don’t know about all Muslim women, do I? My dad talked everything out with her, but I think he made the final decision. At home, though, she ran the show, and he was happy to let her. So, yeh. There’d have been storms. She’d have said, “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you let me help? Do you think I’m a child?” Her eyes flashing, and all of her drawn up tall. Well, as tall as she’d ever manage to be, because she was smaller than me. He’d have said something that would turn out to be about his pride, and she’d have told him exactly what she thought about that, and he’d have ended up on his knees. Literally on his knees, maybe. I saw them once, when she was dying …”
She stopped as if she’d said too much.
“Go on,” I said.
“I forgot,” she said. “That you’re rivals. Also, I may have already drunk too much. Again. Here, take this back.” And handed me the glass.
“We’re rivals in business,” I said. “This isn’t business.” Dangerously close, though. I didn’t need Torsten Drake as any more of an enemy, and yet, right now? I couldn’t seem to care about that. “What happened when she was dying?”
She said, “I’ve decided I’m going to tell you. It’s like the beach thing, right here in my head, trying to get out. It was one day after school, and close to dinnertime by the time I came home from Poppy’s. I spent a lot of time with Poppy during those months. My mum told me it was fine, that I should be with my friends, but I felt guilty about that, afterward. Why didn’t I spend more time with her?”
“Could be it helped her, too,” I said. “Mums worry about their kids.” If there was one thing I knew, it was that. “Takes energy to track them. Energy to think about them. If she was ill …”
“Oh,” she said, and considered it. Then said, “You know? I think you’re right.” And smiled in the way that lit up her face, which could look almost solemn in repose, like some kind of Byzantine Madonna. Or something more ancient, maybe, that you’d see painted on a fresco. Ancient Persian art, before the age of Islam with its ban on representing human figures. That was how she looked, with those eyes and that hair, and the delicacy with which her body had been formed. Like a princess. Scheherazade, maybe, staving off her death with her beauty and her cleverness, night after night. She said, “I came home that day, and they were together. He worked at home some days, while she was ill. People didn’t do that back then, twenty years ago, but he did. I came in, and they didn’t hear me. They were lost in each other, I think. She was so thin by then that her face was all eyes, and she was too pale, with shadows like bruises under her eyes, but her hair was still beautiful, and she’d taken it down, the way she sometimes did at home. The way only he saw, and only he touched. He was on his knees beside her chair, his head was in her lap, and her hair was falling around him. The look on her face …” She stopped, seemed to come to herself, handed the glass back to me once more, and tried to smile. “I’d never seen a look like that. Like she loved him too much to bear, and she hurt exactly that much to know she was going to leave him. I didn’t want to see my dad’s face at all. She was only thirty-seven. I went back out again, as quietly as I could.”
“And did what?”
